Bernie Sanders — AI must benefit humanity, not hurt us.

Speaker 1: Called "Don't Look Up", starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio

The film

Speaker 1: was about a large comet heading to Earth that would destroy the entire planet. And the astronomers who discovered the comet kept trying to gain the attention of people and explain to them what was happening and the need for immediate and bold action to save the planet

In

Speaker 1: that movie, they failed, and the planet was destroyed. That was a movie. Now, let me tell you about something that is not a movie, not fiction, but reality. I fear that we are living through the same scenario that existed in the movie. People, especially their elected representatives, are not paying attention, and the results could be catastrophic

Mr

Speaker 1: President, this time we're not talking about a fictional comet

What we

Speaker 1: are talking about is artificial intelligence, which will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. It will profoundly impact the life of every man, woman, and child in our country. The scale, scope, and speed of this transformation will be unprecedented. Nearly every day, there is a new story about how AI is already transforming the world from our economy to its impact on our kids, to our privacy rights, to our political institutions, to the existential threat that it poses to the entire world. Mr. President, let us take a deep breath. When we think about EAI

the first

Speaker 1: question that we have to ask ourselves is a pretty simple one. Who is pushing this revolutionary transformation of society

Who is

Speaker 1: going to benefit from it? And who is going to get hurt by it

And the

Speaker 1: answers to those questions are not complicated

At a

Speaker 1: time in American history when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had before, the AI revolution is being pushed by the very wealthiest people in our country, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison. And why are these multi-billionaires investing many hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and robotics

Is it

Speaker 1: because they want to improve human life

Is it

Speaker 1: because they want to address the economic struggles facing the 60% of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck, Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, health care, housing, and education? Is it because they want to make sure that all Americans have access to health care as a human right

and

Speaker 1: that we successfully address the crises we face in housing, education, and so many other areas. Is that why these multi-billionaires are pushing this revolution? Maybe

but I

Speaker 1: doubt it. I think the answer is quite obvious, and everybody in America knows it

These

Speaker 1: multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because they want to become even wealthier and even more powerful than they are today. That is what is motivating these investments. Mr. President, I think it's enormously important we take a hard

look at what

Speaker 1: an uncontrolled AI push by the wealthiest people in our country will mean to ordinary Americans

Over

Speaker 1: the past year, I have spoken with workers and union leaders, computer scientists, psychologists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and privacy experts about AI and robotics. And while each of these people may be focusing on a different aspect of the overall situation, they all agree that the unregulated race to develop more and more powerful

AI

Speaker 1: represents a profound threat to humanity and, Mr. President, this is exactly what the average American today is telling us. Recently a poll came out from the publication Heatmap, which expresses an enormous change in sentiment with regard to data centers. Whereas a year ago Americans were evenly

split, on

Speaker 1: whether they supported building a data center near where they live, there is now a 50-point gap with 71% of Americans opposed to building a data center near where they live. And it's not just data centers. When pollsters ask how people feel about AI, there is enormous and growing apprehension

A

Speaker 1: recent Quinnipiac poll found that 55% of Americans think AI will do more harm than good and only 5% think AI development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests. Mr. President, let me give you some of the reasons, just some, as to why the overwhelming majority of Americans are deeply concerned about the rapid development of AI and robotics

The

Speaker 1: American people feel, with 70 percent numbers in a recent poll, that AI will lead to fewer jobs. And they're quite right about their concerns. Elon Musk, who has invested hundreds of billions in AI and robotics, recently said that, quote, "AI and robots will replace all jobs," end quote. Bill

Gates. who

Speaker 1: has also made huge investments in these technologies, predicted that humans, quote, "won't be needed for most things," end quote. Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, said most white-collar work, quote, "will be fully automated by an AI "within the next 12 to 18 months," end quote. And it's not just white-collar jobs that we're talking about. Earlier this year

Wall

Speaker 1: Street Journal reported that Jeff Bezos is seeking to raise a hundred billion dollars to purchase factories all over America. His goal? Replace the millions of workers who are employed in these plants with robots. Recently

I took

Speaker 1: a trip in a self-driving Waymo car in San Francisco. There was nobody behind the wheel. Waymo is already operating. Self-driving cars in 10 major cities and along with other driverless car companies intends to expand rapidly. What does that mean? Well, say goodbye to taxicab drivers, Uber drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, all across the country. Those jobs, gone

As the

Speaker 1: ranking member of the US Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, I released a well-researched report finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million American jobs over the next decade, including 47 percent of truck drivers, 64 percent of accountants, 89 percent of fast food workers, among many other occupations. These are not just theoretical concerns. We are already starting to see the impact of AI and robotics on workers. Amazon and Oracle have laid off 30,000 workers each. Microsoft has laid off 20,000 workers. Meta has laid off 18,000, etc, etc. Researchers have found that new companies using AI have about 25% fewer employees than comparable companies

In

Speaker 1: other words, the AI revolution is already making it harder for people to find decent-paying jobs, and we are only in the beginning stage of this revolution. Let me be clear: the AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers. That is the goal. According to OpenAI's charter

Its

Speaker 1: mission is to build, quote, "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans "at most economically valuable work," end quote. If OpenAI is successful in building highly autonomous systems that outperform humans and most economically valuable work, I have a very simple question. What happens to those workers who are replaced

How

Speaker 1: will they be able to find new jobs, if there are no jobs to find

If AI and

Speaker 1: robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income

If people

Speaker 1: are not employed and if they're not paying taxes, what happens to Social Security? Medicare, Medicaid, and other essential government services funded by these taxes. But it's not just

employment that

Speaker 1: I am worried about and that the American people are worried about. AI and robotics threaten our emotional well-being, who we are as human beings, how we relate to each

other. In

Speaker 1: many cases, work is one of the ways that we connect to each other. Whether we are doctors or taxicab drivers, we all want to serve our community, we want to be productive members of society. That gives our lives purpose. And what happens when millions of people lose their jobs, their meaning and their purpose, and their source of connection to each other? And work is just one aspect of what we're talking about. what happens when people live through their screens. Their major form of social interaction is not with other people, but with screens and artificial intelligence, talking to chat box instead of other people. Further, Mr. President, AI and robotics are threatening the very well-being of our kids. Let us be frank

Even

Speaker 1: before the widespread deployment of AI, children in our country are struggling. A lot of reasons for that, but the evidence is clear. They are struggling. Today, high school kids have the lowest reading scores in 30 years. The writing skills of our children are in decline, as are their cognitive capabilities. College professors tell us that their students cannot do middle school math or read long texts. That is where we are now, what got us here, where are we going in the future? Experts increasingly point to the role of screens and technology. In America today, and this is really, I keep questioning my staff about this, but they tell me that this is accurate. In America today, about 40% of children have a tablet by age

two. Forty

Speaker 1: percent of children have a tablet by age two. The typical five-year-old spends over three and a half hours per day on screens. Nearly all schools now provide devices in classrooms. Mr. President, what is going on here? And let us be clear. The extraordinary amount of time

Speaker 2: our young people

spend on

Speaker 2: screens and the

impact of

Speaker 2: that that time on screens is having on them. All of this is not an accident. We have testimony from

Speaker 1: employees at the major big tech companies, like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, that algorithms they developed were designed to addict kids to screens. Addict kids to screens

A

Speaker 1: senior researcher at Meta, for example, called Instagram, quote, "a drug." In other words, Mr. President, the big tech oligarchs are addicting our kids to screens so that they can make more and more money. They are sacrificing the health and well-being of our children for their increased wealth. And now, now big tech companies are pushing AI and robots to replace teachers in our classrooms. Apparently, it is not good enough for them to addict our kids to screens. Now they want to push AI and robots to replace teachers in classrooms. Do we as a nation really want AI robots teaching our kids? Does anyone have any evidence whatsoever that this new technology will help our kids learn

better? And it is

Speaker 1: not just the intellectual abilities of our kids that we should worry about, AI is also impacting their mental health. It is no great secret that millions of our children are struggling emotionally and loneliness and depression are on the rise. There are many kids in America today whose best friends are not other children they know but AI bots

What

Speaker 1: does it mean for young people to form friendships with AI and become increasingly isolated from other human beings? Does anyone in America think the past 20 years of social media have been good for children's mental health and cognitive capabilities? Does anyone really think we should now entrust these same companies with even more power over our children's well-being and development

But it's

Speaker 1: not only our kids' health, it's not only the economy. AI is threatening the very concept of privacy rights. You know, we hear on the floor of the Senate time and time again, we are a free country. We are a free people. Well, let me give you the bad news. We're not quite as free as people think we are

For

Speaker 1: decades, companies have been collecting our personal information, what we search for online, where we visit, who we talk to, what we buy. Now, AI-powered surveillance companies like Palantir make it possible for someone to quickly analyze all that information, find patterns, and create profiles

of us. And

Speaker 1: by the way, Mr. President, not just the economy, not just our mental

health, It's not

Speaker 1: just what's happening to our kids. AI is threatening our democracy

But back to

Speaker 1: that film, don't look up. Well, maybe we should look at what's going on on the internet right now. Right now, this minute. The rise of deepfakes, convincing fake images, videos, and audio make it possible for bad actors to distort what elected officials and candidates are saying. And I suspect this is personal. for many members of the Senate who have had experiences with this issue. And let me tell you, if you don't think this will ever happen to you, you are very mistaken

In a

Speaker 1: recent Republican congressional primary in

Kentucky, a

Speaker 1: Super PAC opposing Thomas Massey released an ad with deepfakes depicting him in a romantic relationship with female members of Congress. It was a lie, but there were voters in Kentucky who believed that. Bottom line, Mr. President

it is

Speaker 1: becoming increasingly difficult for people to differentiate truth from fiction. How can people make informed political decisions if that occurs? And Mr. President, as we speak, all over this country, people are rising up against data centers in their own communities

They

Speaker 1: don't want to pay higher electric rates. They're worried about the impact of water. They're worried about the impact of noise and heat. And we're seeing people, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, progressives, saying no to these data centers. So, Mr. President

I hope

Speaker 1: very much we don't do what people did in that movie, "Don't Look Up." I hope while this massive revolution is taking place which is going to transform our lives, I hope that we look up and I hope that people in Congress have the guts to say that the future of humanity should not be determined by a handful of the wealthiest people on earth, that maybe in a democratic society the people should determine where we want to go. And I know

that AI

Speaker 1: is spending tens of millions of dollars on campaign contributions

And

Speaker 1: if you speak up against them, hey, they're going to put millions of dollars of 30-second ads against you. But maybe just now, in this moment in American history, we have the guts to tell AI where they should go. Stand up for our kids, stand up for democracy, stand up for privacy, stand up for workers

and

Speaker 1: utilize AI and robotics to benefit all of us, not just to make a handful of billionaires

Speaker 3: even richer. Thank you very much, Mr. President

Under the previous order, the Senate will

Speaker 4: resume consideration of the following nomination, which the clerk will report

Speaker 5: Nomination to Judiciary Antonio M. Pozos of Pennsylvania to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The

question is on the nomination. Thank you